It is a truth (almost) universally acknowledged that rapidly urbanising populations need somewhere to live…somewhere affordable to live, and nowhere on earth does that truth resonate with more social significance than India where, from the 1980’s onwards, central government has struggled to balance the competing demands of privatised construction with an evolving, market based system of housing finance: triggering, in turn, a progressive reallocation of resources towards those rural areas suffering from a lack of basic infrastructure and built amenities (including scarcity of safe drinking water and an effective sanitation infrastructure (https://www.sciencedirect.com).
But at the same time, Indians were increasingly leaving the land in ever greater numbers…meaning the fastest growing large economy on the planet ultimately found itself focusing on the wrong demographic.
By the turn of the new millennium, India’s population had already reached 1,058 billion, and the vast majority of the Subcontinent’s citizens still lived and worked in the open expanses of its agricultural heartland. But, by 2023, that figure soared exponentially to 1.438 billion; 55.3% of the Subcontinent’s citizens were (and still are) living in increasingly urbanised centres; 65.5 million in slum conditions, and 13.7% struggling to survive on wage levels significantly below the national poverty line (www.worldbank.org). These same urbanised centres were also beginning to agglomerate; for example, Delhi and Lahore now make up a seamless single urban landscape with an estimated population of 73.4 million (more than the entire population of the United Kingdom). So, where are they all going to live, and how can they possibly afford to live there?
Well, it’s also a fact universally (and sadly) acknowledged that India doesn’t have a sufficient stock of urban and suburban homes capable of adequately meeting the demands of such a compelling demographic trend. Because, to meet that demand, the Subcontinent would have to build 96,000 additional new homes every day (www.knightfrank.com/research): that’s more than one new home every second of every day…night and day, rain or shine, without stopping for tea or breaks: a daunting enough task in itself, even before you factor in that this underlying trend is itself exponential: without radical changes (see below), rising demand for new affordable housing will continue to outstrip supply at an ever increasing pace for the foreseeable future.
That’s why India’s public housing initiatives over recent years, such as Rajiv Awas Yojana (2009), Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (2015), and even the introduction of Affordable Rental Housing Complexes (ARHCs) in 2020, have hit the spot in substantial part but still struggle to solve the underlying problem. In the face of such an unprecedented demographic trend, they’re recalibrating in the short term, but still striving to meet long term needs, and they’re certainly not alone in that. Across the World, economies need to build faster and better. And that’s precisely where Modular Construction comes into a class of its own
When it comes to advanced building technologies, and delivering at pace where it’s needed most, Modular Construction is undoubtedly in a class of its own: creating units and components in carefully controlled conditions (no more wading around in mud clogged building sites): generating homes that can be readily assembled on site, at a third of the cost of traditional construction, and twice as quickly as well. That means more buildings where we need them most (and especially more new homes to meet the needs of these challenging, increasingly urbanised times). So, if ever there was a paradigm of what emerging technologies can achieve in this vital sector, Modular Construction is it.
Modulex is a ConstrucTech Company working at the vanguard of emerging global construction: making use of 3D volumetric steel modular techniques: harnessing the power of emerging technologies, including AI, Blockchain and IoT, to meet burgeoning housing and infrastructure needs in developing and emerging markets. Delivering at pace and with optimal cost efficiencies.